Chilling-injury in cucumber fruits. VI. The mechanism of pectin de-methylation

By incubating the homogenate of cucumber fruits in vitro, pectin de-methylation was considerably accelerated especially at near neutral pH. Histo-chemical observations based on detection of SH-protein present in sieve tubes, revealed that the cell walls of the fruits chilled at 0°C for 3 days contained the tube constituents, in which pectinmethylesterase was also found. The esterase of the tubes was cold-labile. All the esterases present in a fruit were activated by an addition of ascorbic acid, a reducing agent.The set of these results, together with our previous papers, suggests that in cucumber fruits chilling may at first break the plasmalemma of sieve tubes, whose exudate outflows into the cell walls of tissue cells. The subsequent contact between the tube esterase and wall pectin results in the pectin de-methylation, which makes elastic cell walls rigid and fragile. This ultimately leads to occurrence of water-stress injury. A decrease of redox potential in the chilled fruits may serve for raising the activity of the cold-labile tube esterase.